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Three men convicted for trafficking hashish

Punakha court last week convicted three men for trafficking cannabis and its derivatives and sentenced them to prison terms ranging between five years and eight months to five years and three months.

Rinchen Gyeltshen is sentenced to five years, eight months for trafficking of hashish and cannabis, Tandin Peljor to five years and seven months and Pema Longko sent to five years and three months. They were arrested on November 8, 2018.

Punakha police found Rinchen Gyeltshen, 25 from Tsento in Paro, in possession of 98.36 grammes of hashish and 0.6 grammes of cannabis on November 8, 2018.

A 21-year old farmer from Paro, Tandin Peljor was convicted of trafficking 95.09 grammes of hashish and 24-year old Pema Longko from Lhuentse, for trafficking 65.08 grammes of hashish.

The judgment stated that since they possessed more than the limit set for hashish in the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance and Substance Abuse Act (NDPSSAA) 2018, they were liable for penalty under the Act.

The Act states that a defendant shall be guilty of an offence of illicit trafficking of cannabis and its derivatives, regardless of the degree of purity, if he or she possesses, imports, exports, stores, sells, purchases, transports, distributes, or supplies cannabis or its derivatives if it is more than the quantity determined in Schedule VII of the Act.

The permissible limit in schedule VII for Cannabis is 50 grammes and for Hashish seven grammes.

The offence is graded a felony of third degree if the quantity is more than two times the quantity determined in Schedule VII. If the amount is more than the quantity determined in Schedule VII of the Act but equal to or less than two times the quantity determined, then the offence is graded as fourth degree.

The defendants submitted to the court that the substances were for their personal consumption and not for trafficking. The judgment stated that since the amount they possessed was more than that determined in the Act they was liable for punishment.

The court stated that the amended Act states that notwithstanding the provisions of this Act, a person possessing equal to or less than two times the quantity determined in Schedule VII shall be liable for offence of substance abuse under Section 152 of the Act in lieu of the offence of illicit trafficking.

However, since Rinchen Gyeltshen was convicted in the illegal trafficking of hashish, the court ordered him to attend rehabilitation in prison.

The court ordered police and the Office of the Attorney General to handover the substances involved and submit a report to the court.

At least three people were arrested every day in 2018 for illegal trafficking and abusing drugs in the country, taking the total number of people to 1,188, according to records with the Royal Bhutan Police. This was an increase of 133 people from 2017.

Thimphu has the highest arrest record at 575, followed by Chukha at 217, Sarpang, 103 and Paro with 72 people. At least 70 people were arrested in Samdrupjongkhar, 52 in Punakha, 29 in Wangduephodrang and 28 in Samtse. Trongsa, Zhemgang and Gasa have zero arrest record in 2018. Remaining dzongkhags arrested between one and 12 persons.

Tshering Palden  

Chemist, Spanish appear in court

TWO contractors whom police dubbed reputed gang leaders appeared in the Port of Spain magistrates court yesterday, charged with being in possession of six and ten grammes of marijuana.

One of the men – Kenneth “Spanish” Rodriguez, 45, a contractor and owner of a security firm – pleaded guilty to being in possession of six grammes of marijuana, which he said he used for medicinal purposes, and was fined $2,000.

Acting deputy chief magistrate Cherril-Anne Antoine gave Rodriguez two days to pay. In default, he will serve three months’ imprisonment.

The second “reputed gang leader,” Ancil “Chemist” Villafana, 38, a contractor and father of seven, was charged with being in possession of 10.2 grammes of marijuana. He pleaded not guilty and was granted $25,000 bail or a $10,000 cash alternative.

They were two of five east Port of Spain businessmen, alleged to be gang leaders, who were arrested during a 72-hour Operation Strike Back exercise in the Port of Spain district, led by Police Commissioner Gary Griffith, last week. In all, 258 people were arrested during the exercise, which also saw Griffith raising the police alert level to “red” because of an upsurge in criminal activity in the east Port of Spain district.

Rodriguez, who wore a cream-coloured long-sleeved shirt with the logo RICO Development Company Ltd, appeared first, at 10.25 am.

The charge that, on February 15, he was in possession of marijuana, was read out to him.

The facts were then read out by one of the police prosecutors. According to police, a warrant was executed on Rodriguez’s home for arms and ammunition. None of the latter were found, but a transparent plastic bag with the drugs was found in the pocket of a pair of short pants in a clothes basket.

Rodriguez, who accepted the facts, told police, “Boy, this mine. All I does do is smoke weed.”

He was taken to the Besson Street police station, where he was charged. His attorney Wayne Sturge said his client admitted to his previous convictions for simple possession of marijuana, and it would serve no useful purpose to impose anything other than a fine. Sturge said Rodriguez used the drug for medicinal purposes.

He also asked the magistrate to consider that next year was an election year and that the Attorney General has recently embarked on a series of consultations on the decriminalisation of marijuana, but was told she could not consider anything political and that the position on possession of the drug had not yet changed.

Rodriguez was fined and given two days to pay and the marijuana was ordered destroyed.

Ten minutes later, Villafana appeared and the charge that on February 13, he had in his possession 10.2 grammes of marijuana was read to him.

He pleaded not guilty and his attorney Ian Brooks asked for disclosure of the Besson Street police station’s station diary on the day Villafana was arrested since, he said, the summary of facts was silent on the fact that two other people were present when his client was arrested and that two sums of money – $63,800 and US$2,140 – were seized by police.

Brooks said the search warrant, which was given to him, spoke of the two people who were present, adding, “Something has to be wrong. The summary is at variance with the search warrant.”

The prosecutor, who did not object to bail, said the State had no issue with disclosing the station diary extract and added that the money was now in the possession of the Financial Investigations Bureau.

Villafana was granted $25,000 bail or the cash alternative of $10,000.

Of the five alleged gang leaders arrested last week, Villafana was the only one not released over the weekend after lawyers filed writs of habeas corpus calling on the police to justify their detention.

A warrant for drug possession was executed on him when the judge’s writ was served on the commissioner, and the warrant stated he was not to be granted bail.

Trinidad: 20 held in raid at La Romaine

(Trinidad Guardian) Po­lice blocked off streets in La Ro­maine, south Trinidad, for more than six hours yes­ter­day dur­ing a raid at a known drug traf­fick­ing zone. They ar­rest­ed 20 peo­ple, in­clud­ing sus­pect­ed gang­sters and drug deal­ers and seized an Uzi sub­ma­chine gun, three pis­tols, 74 rounds of 9mm am­mu­ni­tion, three kilo­grammes of mar­i­jua­na, eight grammes of co­caine and a blue po­lice op­er­a­tions jack­et.

The raid was con­duct­ed by the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Unit (SORT) with aer­i­al sup­port pro­vid­ed by drones de­ployed by the Air Sup­port Unit. Of­fi­cers from the South­ern and Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Forces and Ca­nine branch en­tered homes, seized ve­hi­cles and or­der­ing sus­pects to lie on the ground. They blocked off sev­er­al streets, in­clud­ing Charles, Ethel, Claude and By­ron Streets.

How­ev­er, res­i­dents ac­cused the of­fi­cers of abus­ing the sus­pects. Jil­lian Dover said her two sons were among a group of men do­ing con­struc­tion work at a house on Charles Street who were all ar­rest­ed.

“I don’t mind they ar­rest them but they beat one of my sons and his face swell up. I was in church when I heard the po­lice come in here and ar­rest every­one,” she said.

Keino Mar­raster, who was sup­posed to be work­ing at the house, said: “I end­ed up run­ning late to­day. If I was there, they would have locked me up too.”

Mar­raster said the po­lice broke down doors and a woman with a ba­by be­gan to scream.

An­oth­er res­i­dent said her hus­band was tak­ing a morn­ing walk when he was de­tained by the of­fi­cers.

Po­lice left the area af­ter 2 pm but un­der­cov­er of­fi­cers con­tin­ued pa­trols up to late yes­ter­day. The sus­pects are ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trate to­day on charges of pos­ses­sion of arms, am­mu­ni­tion and nar­cotics.

On Fri­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith an­nounced that with­in 36 hours all gang­sters would be ar­rest­ed.

He al­so warned that any­one who ob­struct­ed the po­lice would be ar­rest­ed.